A$AP Ferg Spreads Hood News for ‘Hood Pope’ Video

Ferg and Shomi Patwary direct

A$AP Ferg plays savior in the music video for “Hood Pope,” a woozy slur-along from the Harlem rapper’s 2012 debut album Trap Lord. Directed by Shomi Patwary and Ferg himself (and premiered on Complex), the clip casts the 25-year-old A$AP Mob member as a street-cruising preacher who delivers his sermon from the sunroof of a jeep and turns a Manhattan playground into his own personal pulpit.

“‘Trap Lord’ is basically the writer of the hood,” Ferg told SPIN a few months ago, back when he was still crafting his first full-length, which ranked as one of SPIN’s 40 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2013. “It’s the kid that’s from the hood, from the trap, who’s going to preach to his friends and his homies. Because they’re not going to sit in no church. So they listen to me instead of going to a church, because I understand them, and that’s really what the ‘Hood Pope’ is. I could talk to my people. I could talk to my peers.”